Saturday, November 21, 2015

Ukraine War Mini Update: отбой, лягушка

This is only a mini update. The fighting continues in the Donbass. GRADs and tube artillery are being fired off in limited threatening quantities. Infantry clashes are ongoing, but rarely is there anything more than the sitzkrieg at this point.

However!

In Crimea, someone blew up the main power station. Crimea blacked out according to reports. Emergency generators were brought online in Sevastopol. These are diesel generators of different stripes, but the diesel supply is limited. If reports are true that the power plant is significantly damaged, then Crimea is pretty screwed.

Ukraine is getting really nervous about if this was intentional, as seems likely. Its a perfect casus belli. However, the other alternative is something related to Daesh/IS (this is terrifying for Ukraine because they could flee off the Peninsula and into Ukraine...and Russia would follow).

One potential scape goat is a radicalized Tatar group. The Russians have been abusing them pretty hard core (disappearances, murders amongst the regular oppression) and this would give an excuse to crackdown even harder.

All we can hope for is this was an easily repairable accident and the Russians declare it as such.